92-pages-GUIDELINES-FOR-SECONDARY-SCHOOLS-All-Streams-and-Sections

Teaching speaking
Promoting learners’ speaking skill is one aspect of developing their ‘communicative competence’. Many
language learners see the ability to speak fluently as a fundamental criterion for the measurement of their
communicative competence in its totality (i.e. grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic
competences). Competencies related to other skills such as listening, reading, and writing might go unnoticed
(or look unimportant) in many social contexts where learners are required to react in spoken discourse. Their
success or failure to function orally and effectively in such real-life situations determine the extent to which
they are progressing as language learners. Teachers also view the ability to speak effectively as a central skill
they have to enhance in their classrooms. They also think that a good proportion of the language curricula
should be devoted to teaching speaking. Teaching speaking should be given high priority because of the
following reasons:
• It is a complicated skill that embraces all the components of ‘communicative competence’;
• Language learning is highly dependent on speaking and listening (i.e. speaking to teachers, to
peers, to oneself, etc.);
• Real communication requires attending to messages and reacting to them appropriately;
• Teaching speaking gives learners a high level self-confidence, motivation for learning, and an
appropriate training for real-life tasks;
• A lot of speaking takes place in real life; this lends credence to the belief that teaching this skill
is not just a fad, but it is a necessity;
• Teaching speaking provides learners with the opportunity to grow as effective world citizens;
able to transmit, share and compare ideas, information and cultural patterns of different speakers.
Drawing on the standards-based approach, the guidelines call for the focus on two types “communicative
modes”- the interpersonal and the presentational. These two modes dictate integrating speaking with other
skills systematically. In the classroom context, a conversation, for example, might lead to writing. A
conversation might also lead to listening, reading or a written report or a short presentation. The aim of skill
integration is to enhance more contextualized practice, and thus more learning .In this section, for
pedagogical purposes only, the focus is put on the teaching of speaking component in isolation. There will,
however, be reference from time to time to the other skills in order to shed more light on the nature and
purpose of various tasks and activities.
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التوجيهات التربوية وبرامج تدريس مادة اللغة الإنجليزية س ت ث ت 2007